


Round and Round Like a Horse On a Carousel

by CorsetJinx



Category: Shall We Date?: Wizardess Heart+
Genre: Gen, Memory Alteration, Running Away, Spoilers for Joel's route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/CorsetJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wakes up and is alone. This sticks with her. - C</p>
            </blockquote>





	Round and Round Like a Horse On a Carousel

**Author's Note:**

> Introducing Aina Dunn, my MC for Joel.

She opened her eyes to predawn blue light, blinking slowly as the world came into focus. Damp grass pressed against her cheek, vaguely chilly as if she’d been lying there all night. Before her was the river where she’d floated the lanterns for her parents the previous night, all of them now gone to someplace she could only attempt to imagine. Had she fallen asleep after watching the lanterns go by?

Maybe. But, hadn’t someone been with her?

She couldn’t remember.

Shifting, wincing at the stiffness in her arms and legs, Aina pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her favorite cloak slipped off her shoulder, unpinned from its usual position. She picked it up, pressing the slightly damp cloth to her cheek. If she’d stayed out late to watch the lanterns, she must have wrapped it around herself to stay warm. Right?

The cloak was too short to have spared her stockings, but when she wiggled her toes in her boots they regained a tiny bit of warmth. Standing, carefully balancing her weight on the leg that tingled with pins and needles the least, she looked around.

The river meandered by quietly, tempting her back to sleep. Her eyes squinted in the watery blue light, focusing on the brightening part of the sky, then her surroundings once more. Wiping at her eye with her sleeve didn’t alleviate the grainy feeling of her eyes – the kind she’d gotten after she had been crying over her parent’s death. There was a feeling, cottony and vague at the corners of her awareness, that she shouldn’t be alone. That someone was missing, someone important.

No matter how many times she thought to call out, no name came to mind. You couldn’t call for someone if you didn’t know their name, right?

Swallowing down a heavy, unpleasant feeling she made her feet move – across the bridge, pausing only once to look down into the river. Her wavering reflection stared back, a gently jumble of pink, gold and messy green hair. She turned away after a moment, resuming her shuffle. The path to her home was one she knew by heart, but every step made her feel worse.

Aina raised her hands, rubbing at her upper arms even after drew her cloak around herself.

She paused at the short, faded white picket fence. Long stems of wildflowers, washed pale by the light, stretched up around the planks of wood – blossoms turned to face the sun which should be rising soon. Forcing herself to look up, not to shrink in on herself, Aina faced the little cottage. The windows were dark, looking like the empty eyes she’d glimpsed in her parent’s faces that morning – cold and still.

A prickle started in her eyes, in the back where she couldn’t quite blink it away; throat tightening as something cold and sharp filled her chest. The house didn’t look the same. It didn’t look like her home.

If she went inside, she would be alone. That, more than the sense of something missing, was scarier than anything.

Her feet moved for her, making the decision her locked brain couldn’t seem to. The trees loomed, tall and strange, unfamiliar without the sun and birds and the feeling of someone holding her hand. She passed them by, running between more and more of them, further than she’d ever gone by herself.

In her mind, she couldn’t run fast enough. It was still there, that emptiness, waiting to swallow her whole too, the way it had her parents.

She ran, not looking at anything.

-

It looked like no one had been living there for a long, long time – a wall overgrown with vines and front yard a mess of weeds and grass that grabbed at her legs as she stood before the building. She shivered, too tired to rub her arms for warmth, eying the worn door for a long moment. When she reached for it, the knob felt cold and bumpy under her tiny hand, but it turned. The door caught for a moment, but when she pushed, hard, it opened.

It was dark inside, dust and something that smelled like a salad left out for a couple of days lingering in the air. The air cooled as she stepped inside, shutting the door like her mom had told her was polite to do. There was a shelf with scattered things, she could see that much, what might be a table and chair beyond that. In the deeper, longer shadows ahead there could have been stairs. Blinking in the darkness Aina fumbled for the wand she’d meant to show – show someone, trying to remember the words to the spell she’d wanted to learn.

“L-l-lumen!” Her voice wasn’t as steady as the potter’s voice had advised her to be, but when she thought hard about it, trying to imagine a light shining from the tip of her little wand, it happened. Weak, golden light flickered, creating a small circle of radiance around her. It revealed the dustiness of the floor, cobwebs spanning the walls and, what she could now see it as, the fireplace towards the back of the room.

Aina shuddered, tightening her grip on her wand as she looked around.

It wasn’t her home. It didn’t have anything in it she recognized as familiar.

The ghosts of this place didn’t scare her near as much.

Lowering her wand, spell’s light flickering at her inattention, she addressed them – those which she couldn’t see. “I-I’d like to stay, if you’ll have me.”

The darkness didn’t seem so empty then.

-

There are books in the attic, dusty and mildewed. She finds them after her third day in the house, exploring. No one has come to turn her out, or to ask why she never came home. On the pages she makes out diagrams of spells, or so she thinks. She thinks a lot of things. Animals come by and ask if she lives here now, why she is alone. They tell her of a nearby town and kind people there, but she only asks if they know what berries are safe and if certain leaves are alright to take.

They lead her to apple trees, to wild carrots. Eventually, she works up the courage to ask the way to town. She’s small, dirty, and the first person she meets asks if she is lost. Aina brings herself to ask if someone can help her clear out the things in the house. People give mixed reactions, some shocked, others wanting to know where she came from, where her parents are.

When she finally responds, quiet and tremulous, that her parents are not here anymore, some exchange looks.

It takes a while, but the house is cleared, made livable and she is lucky enough to save some of the books. She explains to the cobbler that she wants to study magic, to get into Gedonelune Royal Magic Academy – the wish resonates with something in her chest, something powerful, and she wants nothing more than for it to come true.

The older man promises to do what he can to restore the books to a readable state, Aina offers to do what work she can for him in return.

The villagers bring her things – a spare set of clothes, food, hand-me-down or cobbled furniture. In return she sweeps, dusts, minds animals and talks to them. Some find it strange, a little green haired girl from nowhere that can talk to animals and understand them, but no one drives her out.

She doesn’t know where she would return to, anyway.

-

The birds lead her to her old home when she asks days, perhaps weeks, later. Things have changed, because the lawn isn’t overgrown and the windows aren’t dark, but that could be the daylight making it seem so. There are only a few things she wants, that she alone can carry, and she isn’t sure yet if there is anything else worth taking.

Whoever the house goes to – she hopes they keep it clean and care for it like her parents did.

-

When the Acceptance Letter comes she tells it to get out. It had fluttered its way down her chimney, after she’d refused to open the door for the strange voice. When it continued to insist that she come along with it, she gave a very real threat to set it on fire.

In its thin, admonishing voice, it ridiculed her knowledge of magic – citing that she likely didn’t know the spell to conjure fire.

“I know how to make a torch,” she promised, eying the condescending twitch of its corners.

Once it deigned to explain itself, really she should have expected something like this, a talking piece of paper after all, she swallowed her pride to apologize. To think, she’d threatened to burn her chance to get into Gedonelune Royal Magic Academy. The Letter proceeded to hold it over her head all the way to the train, but on the ride she fell asleep – excitement and nervousness, coupled with the train’s steady movement, making her tired.

Standing at the entrance was surreal, the castle so much larger than she’d thought it might be – but why would it be large? It was in the capital, after all. There had to be a great number of students that attended.

The Letter’s farewell made her a little sad, but having it around made up for it, somewhat.

-

“You have no idea how to read a map, do you?” His voice is mildly exasperated, bi-colored eyes closing as if her confusion were particularly tiring. Something tugged in her chest, her head, pulled her towards the sound of his voice and the colors of his mismatched eyes. They were familiar, even though she was sure they had never met before. She would remember such a boy, bluntly honest and seemingly uncaring of the effect his words could have.

Aina felt her lips part, words on the tip of her tongue – rebuke, apology, a name?

Why a name?


End file.
